Having set off at 2230 on Sunday evening, the sea state was pretty rough but we had a fantastic sail with 1 reef and a couple of rolls in the genoa, across the channel throughout the night and early morning, doing well over 8 knots for a lot of the time. By midday yesterday the wind was beginning to drop and eventually died away to almost nothing (4-5 knots) which is not enough for Ailsa to sail. So we turned on the engine but it wouldn’t start. Richard tried valiantly to get it started, changing the fuel filter and other various things to try and remedy the problem but with no luck. Those of you that have been watching the fleet viewer on the World Cruising website will no doubt be wondering why on earth we seemed to be stationary for so long. Having contacted several people with the Sat phone to get advice, eventually we had to get a tow in to port for repairs,so the French lifeboat service were called. They towed us to L’Aberwrach, which took 4 hours and neatly deposited us on a pontoon.

We have an engineer coming out this afternoon to hopefully sort out the situation (meanwhile Richard is in his boiler suit, reading all the information he can get hold of and trying to fix it himself before the engineer arrives)

On a positive note – I had always wanted to visit L’Aberwrach and so here I am. I will have a wander up to the little village while the boys (he has just arrived) fiddle with the engine and see if I can locate a french stick shop (that bit is for Judy) for tomorrow morning !!!

 

Will let you all know our next plan. Love Shelley